A man who local activists were trying to set free from the Guantanamo Bay prison was found dead on Sept. 8.
Adnan Latif was found unresponsive in his cell at the United States military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and did not respond to emergency medical treatment, according to a report by The Washington Post. The cause of his death has not been released.
The 36-year-old native of Yemen, who was never charged with any crime, spent more than a decade locked up after being arrested near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001, following the U.S. invasion.
Latif had been cleared for release several times by the Department of Defense and the Bush and Obama administrations. In August 2010, finding no evidence that Latif had ever raised a hand against the U.S., a federal judge ordered Latif’s release.
So why didn’t it happen?
“For reasons no one fully understands, the Obama administration fought his release in federal court, going so far as to appeal the original judges release order,” said Jamie Mayerfeld, a University of Washington professor who has written about and studied the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
In limbo
According to his lawyer, David Remes, Latif was mentally ill, had attempted suicide many times and suffered from various physical ailments. He weighed less than 100 pounds, partly because of hunger strikes. Interviewed by Real Change last year, Remes said Latif was beaten by guards and force-fed through his nose. A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment on Latif’s condition. (“Seattle church campaigns to free Guantanamo prisoner,” RC, April 20, 2011.)
Advocates maintained that Latif was in Guantanamo by mistake. In 1994, a car accident left Latif, then 18, with a severe head injury and blind in one eye. His family was destitute, so the government of Yemen paid to send him to Jordan for surgery, Remes said. The operation was only partly successful, and in 2000, Latif, then 24, met a man who promised him free medical help in Afghanistan, where he was arrested by the U.S.
But once Latif was in Guantanamo it proved impossible to get him out. In January 2011, following the Christmas Day incident in which a Yemeni man tried to blow up an airliner, President Obama banned returning any Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Yemen.
“It was Latif’s misfortune to be from Yemen,” Mayerfeld said. “Obama placed a ban on returning any prisoners to Yemen. Given that other countries were unlikely to accept these prisoners, that trapped him in Guantanamo.”
Congress later effectively prohibited the transfer of any Guantanamo Bay prisoner to another nation.
Local pleas unheeded
Seattle-area activists, including members of University Temple United Methodist Church, last year took up Latif’s cause and started a letter-writing campaign for his release. Church members signed a March 27 letter to Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Rep. Jim McDermott urging action on behalf of Latif.
Their pleas went unheeded.
“No elected official, as far as I’m aware, ever took up his case,” Mayerfeld said. “Neither of our senators [took action], despite dozens of letters written by Washington state legislators.”
Mayerfeld hopes Latif’s death will help draw attention to the plight of the 167 people — about half of them from Yemen — who are still behind bars in Guantanamo.
“I think people have forgotten about Guantanamo and the prisoners of Guantanamo, so I think they’re victims of indifference and also enormous, misunderstanding of the facts,” Mayerfeld said.
“I think there’s been a lot of
mythology about Guantanamo, much of it stirred by the Republican Party for partisan political reasons,” Mayerfeld said, “and Obama has done almost nothing to correct widespread myths about Guantanamo and the detainees in Guantanamo.”